Lonely Men

As long as I can remember I have struggled with the feeling of loneliness. Growing up as a child I was socially awkward, not really fitting in because I was more of a “nerd”.

Within my family I felt a disconnect with my extended family, often feeling like the black sheep within the family. To a degree I felt written off with many waiting for me to fall.

For a portion of my teenage years I was not very popular with the ladies and felt like an ugly duckling. Not to mention the girls didn’t want the “good” boy, they wanted the thug.

In my late teens I hung with the “criminals and drug dealers” as Pac said, so I could learn the street, to draw the women, but that wasn’t me. My partners knew it and allowed me to hang close enough to learn and know, but not really be a part. Of course hanging with a lot of brothers who were in the streets ultimately leads to one of the inevitability’s of street life which is getting locked up, if not killed and as my friends were locked up, I found myself alone again. Although I must admit I felt alone during those times as well, but it was different.

Don’t get me wrong during those times I had beautiful girlfriends and I was kind of this rough around the edges gentleman. It was an interesting dynamic and even now at 41 I suffer from the disorder of a long memory because I can remember every heart-break even from elementary…LOL. One girl had her friend write me a breakup letter in high school and said, “It’s not like I’m losing Jojo or K-Ci (of Jodeci).”

Another young lady, whom I thought I wanted to marry, was afraid to tell her mom of my interest and wouldn’t let me ask for her hand although she thought she wanted to marry me as well. Whelp you can guess how that ended.

Sooo…moving right along…I share all of that because overtime repeated rejection weighs on a man and to be truthful, it probably doesn’t take much rejection before a man becomes reckless with his heart, but above all things he becomes lonely and lonely men can be dangerous men, struggling to accept and embrace love, friendship, companionship, partnership and fellowship.

God himself looked at Adam, with whom he had a perfect relationship, and said, “It is not good for man to be alone. I shall make for him a suitable helpmeet.”

Let us look at some men in their loneliness to see why God would say such a thing:

A lonely Adam followed after a woman who abandoned the heart of God and his.

When Moses was alone, after having found out his true heritage, he murdered a man and ran into the wilderness.

A lonely Judah was tricked into sleeping with his daughter-in-law.

A lonely Samson, after having lost one woman and being betrayed, tried to hang on to one that was not good for him either, to his detriment.

A lonely David was out of position and took another mans wife and had him killed.

Lonely husbands and fathers sought to stone a lonely David who had suffered the same loss as them.

A lonely Elijah ran into a cave from a woman of whom he had just defeated her prophets by Gods power.

A lonely Peter, cursed and denied his savior.

A lonely Judas, hung himself after betraying his savior.

A lonely Jesus cried out, “My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me.”

Lonely is defined as:

sad because one has no friends or company

without companions; solitary

(of a place) unfrequented and remote

The last part of the definition is the one I want to focus on for this post. The place most unfrequented and remote is the heart of the lonely man because we place our hearts on an island and make access to this remote place difficult and undesirable.

When our hearts are lonely we become unpredictable and more susceptible to do harm to others while trying to deadened the pain of our loneliness. The harm to others is usually unintentional, they are basically collateral damage.

Lonely men become adulterous with our heart. It does not mean we physically cheat but our heart is in a state of disconnection and consistent commitment is difficult to maintain or is nonexistent. This man lives in moments, when he was designed to lead movements. He impacts few, when he was built to impact multitudes. He has a constant battle to live a life worth living so that he does not QUIT!

So what do we do about the heart of the lonely man? What is the key to unlocking consistent access to his remote place? To be truthful, I don’t know, but I am on the hunt.